Saturday, July 14, 2012

Movies: The best worst plan in horror bad guy history.

Shark Night 3D contains more than one shark and takes place over the course of more than one single night. That's really the only sense in which Shark Night can be said to exceed expectations.

Almost nothing works in this flick. The plot revolves around a completely stupid idea and the only way to redeem it would have been to simply go gonzo with it. But, in fact, Shark Night disappoints in its lame timidity. Okay, I'm not one of those bloggers who thinks every horror flick need be some battle of endurance wherein the viewer is pitted against the red syrup budget of the SFX department. I'll take smart plotting, rich characters, engaging themes, and genuine emotional impact over schlock any day of the week. But - and let's be honest with ourselves - what did anybody firing up the streaming (ha, I originally wrote steaming!) version of SN want or expect from this flick. Ain't nobody turning to their partner and saying, "Dear, I know we intended to watch Tarr's Autumn Almanac tonight, but I've heard that Shark Night captures the spiritual malaise while pushing the project of inventing the self-conscious experimentalism of remodernism even further than Tarr by placing it within a post-Guattarian framework. Plus, it's got the dude from Grounded for Life in it. We like him."

No, of course they didn't. If they did, they got exactly what they deserved. In fact, whatever happens to somebody like that is completely deserved. Even if it is worse than Shark Night.

What anybody who watched this flick expected to see was nubile flesh, sharks, and death. See pic above.

Problem is, Shark Night is kinda afraid of girls when it comes to the skin show and it's remarkably bloodless when it comes to the killin'. It's got sharks, granted; but one out of three does not a champion make.

I will say that Shark Night does feature what is probably the most hilariously stupid villainous plan ever committed to film - or digital memory, as the case may be. I don't think you can spoil a rotten film, but if you're one of those obsessives, skip the rest of this paragraph and jump straight to the next one. Okay. They're gone. Here's the dilly. We're going to bide time here so it looks convincing that I'm dropping a spoiler on you. Then, in the next paragraph, I'm going to drop a spoiler on them right in the first sentence. Because we can. Are they looking over here? Look cool, look cool! Just act natural. Now, like, nod like I just told you all about the film. And . . .

The sharks are in the lake because some baddies thought a good way to make money would be to catch and maintain a large stable of the world's most deadly creatures - including what appears to be two animals (great whites) that have never been able to survive captivity before - so they can make Internet shark snuff films. Oh, um. End spoiler.

The sheer awesomeness of this idea is almost enough to redeem the film. Imagine the chain of logic that led three backwater hicks to this plan. "You know what people love watching: shark attacks."

"True that. I bet you could get rich if you just, like, had a ton of recorded shark attacks to sell."

"Yeah. Shame you'd have to figure out a way to make 'em happen regular like."

"Yeah. Shame there . . . Hey, wait. Here me out. What if we, you know, bought a boat. Then tricked it out with sufficient material and tech to capture sharks live. And I'm talking big sharks. Plus, you know, we should probably all get degrees in marine biology, 'cause I understand that keeping them things alive in captivity, especially the big ticket fellas, is a serious challenge for even the most well staffed and equipped aquarium."

"Yeah. Like, even the Monterey Bay folks couldn't keep that baby great white contained and alive from more than few months."

"Naw. And there's going to be a major outlay in underwater recording equipment."

"And we best hope the sharks just don't eat each other."

"Right. Sometimes, you just got to trust to God right? But anyway, I figure, for a several million outlay for training, equipment, labor, facility upgrades, and such, a fella stands to make a few bucks."

About Me

I have no pets. I own several ties, but rarely have a reason to wear any of them. I sing in the shower but can never remember the words, so I make them up as I go along, and they always end up being songs about showering. I collect slang dictionaries.